In August last year thousands of Tongans from around the world returned to Tonga for the coronation of King Siaosi Tupou V, answering the call of the ancient obligations to family and tradition that binds Tongans - even when far from home. These ties help maintain a rich cultural tradition but the obligations can weigh heavily on families attempting to establish themselves in a new country like Australia.

For most Australians Tonga is probably something of a mystery&#8212at best the destination for an exotic tropical holiday. But for Tongans the influence of Australia has been profound. Missionaries from Australia brought Wesleyan Christianity to the islands in the 19th century, Australia is the country's largest contributor of support for development and Tongans have been migrating to Australia for generations. Today more than 8,000 Tongans live in Australia.

In all, more than 100,000 Tongans live in countries around the Pacific Rim and beyond—almost as many Tongans live abroad as live on the home islands. And despite the great distance from their ancestral home, the communities of the Tongan Diaspora stay deeply connected to their culture and traditions.

In Australia the image of Tongans in Australia is ambiguous. A recent story on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald was a report on the impact of increasing numbers of Tongans (and other Pacific Islanders) on both Aussie Rules football and rugby. The Islanders are bigger and faster than the white players and they're changing the game&#8212from the juniors all the way through to the ranks of the professionals—and not everyone is happy about it. Some parents go so far as to take their kids out of clubs where they fear bigger kids with a Pacific island background will literally outweigh the lighter-built 'Aussies' on the field. And then there's Jonah, the disruptive Tongan high school kid depicted by comedian Chris Lilly in the series Summer Heights High.

As role models go, these two extremes—behemoth on the football field and drop kick in the class room—are pretty limiting and Tongans struggle to find other kinds of voices in the wider Australian community. At the same time, we can expect more Tongans to arrive in Australia, looking for more and better opportunities than are available to them in Tonga, even if they are only here as seasonal workers or students.

Tongan culture and society is sustained by complex hierarchies of traditional family obligations, at the apex of which sits the King. Overseas communities work hard to maintain these relationships, but the obligations they entail (to other family members, to community churches and schools, even to the traditional nobles) can be onerous.

Obligations that back home might have meant giving tapa or pigs or taro can be transformed in substantial financial commitments—which come at considerable cost. Inevitably the question arises: can these traditions be sustained as a new generation of Tongans seek to find their place in contemporary Australia?

For ABC broadcaster Jill Emberson, these questions of Tongan identity and community are of more-than-purely professional concern&#8212her father is part-Tongan&#8212 and even though she grew up in suburban Sydney, and had no real contact with her father through most of her childhood, her Tongan heritage has had a profound impact on her life.

For 360, Jill returned to Tonga to report on the coronation—and to explore the ties of tradition and obligation that bind Tongans together across the vast reaches of the Pacific—the same ties that bind her to a culture that is only marginally hers.